“The addition of information about beer strength to labelling was driven, I think, as much by government and the health lobby as CAMRA, though I could be wrong. Before then, you went into a pub and you learned which beers were strong. Hürlimann lager, in the sixties and seventies, was 5% ABV, when most of the others were 4% or less, and got to be known as ‘Hooligan’. It wasn’t advertised as strong, but people worked it out.”
Richard Harvey, PR for Allied Breweries in the 1970s, from an interview conducted for Brew Britannia.
3 replies on “QUOTE: Hooligan Beer”
Is he saying it was better to not have ABVs listed on beers? How is it better to ‘work out’ what is ‘strong’ and what isn’t?
Strange viewpoint!
It would go with the “real beer for grownups” attitude to drinking that used to be quite common – learning which beer did what to you and how quickly would be part of the process of acquiring the taste and finding your way around.
He was just stating the facts, and countering the suggestion that before ABVs were declared, people had no idea which beers were strongest. There was one very simple way of working it out…